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At the beginning of my discipleship journey after my
conversion experience I had a friend talk me into making a Cursillo
weekend. Cursillos are a wonderful taste
of contemplating Christian leadership for any disciple. One of the lovely
fellowship prayers said at fellowship group gatherings, borrows a verse from
today’s Psalm being: “30When you send forth your spirit, they are
created; and you renew the face of the ground.”
The actual Cursillo prayer is the opening prayer to
discussing with your fellow cursillista how your week in piety, study and action
has been going. The prayer goes like
this: “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and kindle in us the
fire of Your love. Send forth Your Spirit and we shall be created, and You shall
renew the face of the earth. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit did instruct
the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly
wise and ever rejoice in Your consolations; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen”
What I have come to really love about this prayer is that
it intentionally makes you conscientious about that spiritual formation process
being remembering and living into your baptism as a daily process of
Reflection, Confession, Repentance and Renewal.
This should be a patented statement since it’s not of my theological
creation but from my mentoring pastor, Pastor Dawson. What does this mean and how is this truly
present in today’s lessons?
This daily process of Reflection, Confession, Repentance
and Renewal is how we develop spiritually from one-on-one faith based
discipleship. We need to reflect on the
things we’ve done and left undone. Sound
familiar? This is an aspect of why we
corporately confess together in worship as well as privately confess in prayer.
Confession is affirming our conviction not only as what we have come to believe
in, but acknowledge, own up to being faithfully accountable to God and neighbor
that we are aspiring saints who definitely as well, sin. Repentance is overcoming those stumbling
blocks the world and the Evil One place in our path and the concept of renewal
is acceptance of the New Nature—growing into, living it.
Accepting the New Nature is not an easy road at all for
any of us. We can’t be self-righteous or
arrogant about our spiritual formation as well as we shouldn’t avoid the things
that we MUST accept and CHANGE in order to live truthfully and faithfully to
build and reveal the Kingdom of God!
Especially as a pastoral leader, I have been ordained not into “an
office” but a vocation of gathering people to Christ in order that they are
empowered, enlightened and encouraged to share and LIVE the Good News out into the
world by developing and taping into that New Natured wisdom growing from Grace
inside that 1st church—the Heart!
This past weekend, my husband and I travelled some 1,400
miles in total wandering across God’s beautiful landscape in Missouri, Arkansas
and Illinois. It is amazing how vast and
changing the roads would meander. There
were hundreds of hills and valleys we drove upon. There were roads literally carved out of
mountain-sides that we drove through! In
many ways if you think about it enough, travelling through these various
landscapes, changes of scenery apply to how our lives daily change whether we
realize it or not, whether we want it or not.
My husband Phil has lead a fascinating life travel-wise
in comparison to mine. He’s lived seven
states and has visited 46 states. My
travelling portfolio is not too impressive.
I’ve lived 47 years in Illinois and travelled to less than five
different states so far though Phil has been helping to expand upon this
greatly! In a few months, both he and I
will be taking a monumental leap forward into the great unknown; we’ll be
moving to the state of Oregon where I will be embarking upon my first solo
pastorate! As the saying goes, we all have to leave the nest at some point in
time in our lives!
Change is scary though, we naturally fear it, and sometimes
naturally try to avoid it completely! Is
this not really a point of endurance, suffering our humanity? Just listen to the people complaining and
even getting Moses to join in complaining about their sojourning, about
worrying about food, sleeping, taking care of themselves. Complaining may feel good for the moment but
it’s just masking our fears. It is the
stumbling block here for not only the Israelites in the Numbers’ text but now
for us as disciples of Jesus moving forward in our lives to grow in being
centered in, with and through Christ.
How we transform through change is by letting that New
Natured wisdom take control over the very things we fear to let go of. But in order to truly live into the kind of “rightness”
the Good Lord wants us to live for, we must excise the things that cause us to
fall back into our Old Natured ways and worldly wisdom.
If we choose to dwell in false comforts and our Old
Natured ways as we hear in James; we are creating our own hell. It’s like living with your entire house for
the most part, partially packed for over a year in hopes to move! The story
there was an opportunity last year that fell through. At first I lamented but wanted to keep
packing in hopefulness as well as stay packed… This has been my trivial but
actual hell in persevering in HOPES for something greater and brighter to
happen around the corner of my discipleship journey. What created my hell was the obstacle of
impatience and pessimism. Now my faith has
greatly been restored as well as patience and determination as Phil & I
prepare to be Oregon-bound fairly soon!
Life is a lot like those mountains and valleys, where
your heart feels the rise and fall of each and every moment… But God gave us
the capacity to seek and find and to be fire and salt for the Gospel imperative
to be sown and reaped in the hearts of our neighbors! The reality of the
Kingdom of God is living into Grace through repentance, hope, love, compassion,
and accountability—this is New Nature wisdom.
Living into the challenge of discipleship recently
reminded me of an old favorite philosophy film called “Being There.” If you recall it was the last film that the
actor/ comedian Peter Sellers made before his death. It is the ultimate ironic, existential comedy
about a gardener who lived a very simple life.
In fact, when his simple world was shattered by the death of his inn
keeper… He could only handle reality by
treating everything he saw and experienced as if it was lived through a TV
screen. He made a statement alright, if
we’re not ready to handle the challenge of change, we create a whole different
kind of reality…
I’ll leave you with a story about a woman I cared for
recently who is not dealing with change all too well at all. Her husband died over a year ago, she still
has a large mansion a couple of towns north of where she is staying in an
assisted living facility. She has very
little wrong with her physically except for some neuropathy issues in her legs
due to diabetes and some early Alzheimer’s complications. For the most part, she barely qualifies to
stay at this facility except that she is claiming the need to be there for a
little while and this facility is frankly greedy...
Her small apartment in this home has little to no furniture
or belongings at all as well as in all honesty there seems little need for me
to be there for the full 9-to-5 day she has called me to stay with her. She sleeps till about 11am and awakens to
have me assist her in getting ready for her daily activities. I am truly there for company as well as I
hear her pain hidden behind her lists and her outlines as she continues to talk
about her life before she came there.
Since visiting her and caring for her, I have daily been
praying for her to seek extensive grief counseling. I can’t imagine what her evenings are like,
alone there in a partially occupied room while her whole life is locked up and
waiting for her return a couple of towns north of where she is staying…
They say that houses especially when lived in spiritually
are intrinsic to who we are and where we need to grow and GO to carry on… They say if you dream of that house changing
or being rebuilt in your mind; it is spiritual reconstruction most likely for
the better! For this woman, she has literally created a worldly hell for
herself in avoiding confronting the pain and suffering her husband’s death has
spiritually and emotionally caused her.
I can only continue to pray that she faces her stumbling block and moves
forward to find herself again but renewed for a new beginning and a new
purpose.
Being renewed and living into a new beginning and a new
purpose is wonderfully exciting and scary speaking for my husband & I but I
am grateful to God for all Good gifts He has given me and challenged me to grow
by. Goodbyes aren’t forever, the past is
painted into the heart’s memory… It makes
the Good soil for the Holy Spirit to build us up into that rightness God is
seeking for us to realize.
Let us pray—
Gracious and Loving God,
There is so much Your mediation in our lives can truly
teach us
Help us to continue to face our challenges and stumbling
blocks
In order for us to be and become all things through
Christ who does strengthen us daily! AMEN
September 27th, 2015; 18th Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 21; Year B; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon by Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm 104:27-35; Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29; James 5:1-20 & Mark 9:38-50
https://youtu.be/ta0xJFUZirw
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